


We Didn't Choose This Life, We're Just Living It

by ArcMark



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Five has to save everyone's asses again, Gen, Got this idea immediately after I complained to a friend about having no plot, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, POV Number Five | The Boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26052352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcMark/pseuds/ArcMark
Summary: Vanya's been discharged, Luther's nowhere to be found, and no one believes what Five says about their impending doom.Or: Five is stuck in a mental institution with his siblings, and the apocalypse is coming.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & The Handler (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 14
Kudos: 119





	1. Everything About Us is Insane

They’re all in here with him. Well, almost all of them—Luther didn’t get sent to the hospital for reasons unknown, and Vanya’s notably absent, having been let out this morning on account of her doing so well—ergo, she feels like shit and her powers are suppressed again. He yelled when she left; they sedated him for causing a ruckus and, as The Handler put it, “spewing bullshit lies and falling victim to his delusions.”

But he knows the danger they’re all in. The apocalypse could be upon them once again. His siblings laugh in his face at his confession during group and say he’s as crazy as they come. The nurses are sympathetic, if a little stupid, calling him a name he refuses to take as his. “My name is Five,” he insists. “Number Five. Five Hargreeves.” 

The name on his wristband says otherwise. 

His siblings aren’t helpful for the most part, should one look away when Klaus steals Five’s pills, and Allison’s sympathetic glances right before he’s put under sedation make Five wish he could rip his hair out.

It doesn’t help that sometimes, he swears he sees Ben. Dearly departed Ben, the nicest of them all, wandering down the halls and disappearing whenever Five turns the corner. It’s beyond bizarre, considering seeing ghosts isn’t Five’s power. Frustration doesn’t begin to describe what he feels, but he refrains from shouting when it happens now; the last time he did—yesterday morning, to be exact—he was hauled back to his room by security and sedated.

Come to think of it—his neck is a lot sorer than when he first entered the hospital. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear the pain he feels is the result of a bruise. A short trek to the bathroom and a glance in the mirror later, Five confirms his suspicions.

Despite the bruise’s small size, its presence leaves him with a seemingly permanent scowl all through dinner, which, for tonight, is chicken and vegetable soup. He doesn’t eat it, even with Diego reminding him that he needs to keep up his strength. There’s no point; his powers haven’t worked since he woke up in the facility three days ago. He isn’t sure why, but he suspects it’s got something to do with being sedated so often.

That, and his pills, of course.

Whatever’s in them is messing with him, shorting out his powers and leaving him lacking in energy—he tires easily, which only fuels his short fuse of a temper. When it was time for recreational therapy hours earlier, Five found himself stuck doing art, and the result was him hurling pink paint in Cha-Cha’s face when she tried to stop him from attacking The Handler. 

The Handler hadn’t done anything to provoke him; she was merely walking down the hall. But the sight of her in her elaborate doctor’s outfit set him off, and he didn’t hesitate in seizing the nearest thing to pitch in her direction. It was only unfortunate timing that Cha-Cha got in the way. Five had to deal with a screaming security guard instead of a screaming fake psychiatrist, and damn, was that unpleasant.

After dinner, when it’s time for everyone to take their meds, Five grabs his cup and immediately hands it over to Klaus, who downs its contents dutifully alongside his prescription pills and proceeds to grin at his older sibling. “Thanks,” Klaus says, earning a nasty glare from Allison, who mouths, “I saw that!”

Five ignores his sister’s ire, knowing she’ll get over it sooner than later. He does, however, stare directly at one of the security cameras, hoping to inspire whoever it is that’s monitoring them to shut the hell up about what they’ve seen. He’s done this once before—last night; The Handler didn't say a word about him not taking his medication. If he keeps it up, he hopes he’ll be able to escape with few issues.

Once he’s out, he needs to find Harold Jenkins, also known as Leonard Peabody. He needs to kill him. It’s the first step to keeping Vanya safe—to keeping everyone safe. He needs to make sure the apocalypse doesn’t happen again for a third time.

Why is it always him who’s hellbent on fixing things?

Five heads for the common room, taking a seat on the couch before Klaus can lie down and annoy him in the process. No one joins him, choosing to sit elsewhere and chat amongst themselves if they aren’t watching whatever movie it is that’s on the television. If Ben or Vanya were here, they might sit next to him, might try to start a conversation, but Vanya’s gone. Ben’s dead.

It’s times like these: when he’s idle and quietly reflective, where Five wishes he’d never left. It’s foolish thinking, but sometimes he wonders if there’s a rare, improbable moment where he listens to Reginald—where he doesn’t disregard Vanya shaking her head at him and shuts up and sits down. He wonders if Ben is alive after that decision to stay; if he and an alternate version of Five live in adult bodies and have no knowledge of all the things that haunt him now. The things the nurses say are hallucinations, the things that he knows are facts and memories from a different time.

Five’s not crazy. He remembers things too vividly for him to be out of his mind. The Handler’s trying to undermine him, that’s all. He can’t let her win. He won’t.

For now, Five gets up, puts on his kindest smile, and politely asks a nurse to unlock one of the shower units for him, the façade fading as soon as he’s in his room, fetching his clothes. Five grabs a towel off the linen cart on his way to the shower room, and before long, he’s clean but miserable—an apt description, given his current surroundings.

After lights out, he lies awake, staring up at the ceiling, plan after plan after plan racing through his mind. None of them are viable, not at this stage, but Five knows he has to act fast. He can’t have Vanya getting worse; he can’t let Harold get his hands on her. When he falls asleep, it’s to the thought of murdering The Handler, her screams a sick lullaby that lulls him into the land of dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise in advance if/when I mess up the portrayal of mental institutions. I've never been in one, which I suppose is a good thing, but it does make it considerably more difficult to portray them when you have no basis from which to base them off. Then again, The Handler's in charge of this particular place, so it's already more corrupt than any actual hospital.
> 
> I hope that if you enjoyed this first chapter, you enjoy what's to come.
> 
> Also, shout-out to my friend (you know who you are) for convincing me to write this fic! Your excitement fueled my excitement.


	2. You Have No Concept of What's Important

Day four in the institution, and Five’s tempted to say his sanity is slipping. It’s the only way to explain why Diego is smiling over a letter during breakfast. In truth, Five’s surprised Diego got mail at all—he can’t recall anyone who would willingly write to his younger brother.

The only thing that surprises Five more than the letter is the disgusting quality of the coffee in the institution: he swears it has to be another jab from The Handler—she knows Five values high-quality coffee, and this abomination of a drink is even worse than what Klaus makes at home.

Five quietly adds: _getting a real cup of coffee_ to the list of things he has to do once he escapes the facility. It’ll make up for all the living nightmares he has to endure whenever he takes a sip of the burnt atrocity they consider coffee.

Group therapy goes about the same as it always does—poorly. Five grits his teeth and holds his tongue during the whole ordeal; any mention of the apocalypse is bound to make him feel worse when his siblings inevitably judge him and unknowingly agitate him further. There are rumours of a new nurse among the staff to top it off, and Five knows beyond a doubt that it's just The Handler proving she's in control.

It doesn’t lessen the blow during physical therapy when he sees the delicate blonde curls, telltale red lips, and sparkling blue-green eyes that belong to one Grace Hargreeves, dressed in a nurse’s uniform and smiling widely at everyone she passes in the hallway. Diego’s hit the hardest; he stops in his tracks and stares at Grace the way Five does whenever he sees Ben—as if his eyes are deceiving him.

Unlike Five, Diego doesn’t yell. Diego doesn’t chase after Grace as she turns the corner the way Five chases after Ben. Diego doesn’t utter a single sound as he gapes at a woman who is, undoubtedly, the spitting image of their former robot nanny-turned-mother. 

Who, Five recalls, was made to resemble their father’s former inamorata from the sixties. Unsettling, then, that she was programmed to compliment Reginald in conversation and only ever spoke of his merits rather than his many faults.

Days five to seven are startlingly uneventful, aside from Diego’s perceived successes at growing closer to Grace—Mom, he calls her once, the innocuous slip-up eliciting a quiet and kind giggle that matches their robot mother’s tone exactly—Klaus’s continued taking of Five’s pills, and Allison's growing disapproval of Five shirking his medication. Yesterday night, she looked one more instance away from taking matters into her own hands.

It isn’t until the morning of day eight that Five sits face-to-face with The Handler in their designated meeting room, a particularly caustic glare sent her way as he imagines carving into her face with a hot, sharp blade and staining her snow-white dress a bright, bloody red.

For four days, he hasn’t seen her for a checkup. For four days, he’s been aggravated at everyone, from Cha-Cha to Grace to Agnes, too, the sweet cafeteria worker getting his strained version of mild-tempered when Five pinned her with a glare and said a pointed, “You’re giving me _real_ coffee. Black.” and got nothing in return except a clap on the shoulder and an admittedly pleasant chat with Hazel once Five’s temper settled down.

Seeing the ostentatious woman before him, however, is anything but pleasant, and the look on his face ensures that she knows it.

“Your adorable little face will get stuck if you keep looking at me like that.” Her voice snips through his thoughts neatly. She’s filing her nails and not even bothering to look at him. “It’s a shame you couldn’t keep those cute shorts that came with your schoolboy outfit, but” —she finally looks at him, gives him a slow once-over that makes his skin crawl— “you don’t look bad in white.”

Five bites his tongue and holds back a scathing remark. His moments with The Handler are few, far between, and unfortunately precious; he has to focus on the priorities at hand. “Where’s Vanya?”

“Not here, but you already know that.” The Handler lights a cigarette. Five entertains the thought of grabbing the cigarette holder from her hand and shoving it through her eye. “How are those powers of yours? They still work?”

“No.” The word comes out forceful, pointed, and dipped in acid. It’s a lie, of course, but then again, this whole place is a farce commanded by a woman who lies like the act is second nature. “Your constant use of pills and sedatives have made quick work of my abilities.”

The Handler’s prideful grin sets off Five’s murderous urges, but he crushes them simply, taking a sip of water from a nearby glass, and a silent breath to release his tensions. She looks up after jotting down a lengthy note on her notepad. “And how are you adjusting to life without your powers, Mr. Five? Are you angry that they’re gone? Relieved? We can talk about that if you’d like.”

Five keeps drinking to avoid responding, not caring that water spills onto his clothes with the urgent way he downs it. When he sets the glass back on the table, a shadow passes under the door, a quiet laugh from outside the stale meeting room setting off every nerve in his body.

Even though he hasn’t heard that voice in what feels like forever, he’d recognise it anywhere.

It sounds like Ben.

Moreover, it sounds like a trap.

Ten seconds later, The Handler tsks _,_ getting up and smoothing out her dress as she gestures for Five to get up and follow her to the door. “Looks like our time is up,” she says, despite their session’s typically longer time limit, pulling the door open to reveal no one there. It can’t have been an hour already; he only just sat down.

Five doesn’t bother with getting the last word in as he leaves the room. He’s too busy trying to spot Ben, finding the hall lacking in sightings of his presumably dead brother. Frustration fills him up in an instant, and the result is him running down the hall, blatantly breaking the rules, weaving in and out of the spaces between his fellow patients as Five tries to spot a ghost of a man.

Instead, he nearly runs headfirst into Allison, whose eyes widen at the sight of him and inhales sharply as Five skids to a halt in front of her. “What are you doing?”

Excuses escape him, and Five blurts out the truth. “Have you seen Ben?”

Allison’s brows knit together, bewilderment fading to skepticism. “Is this a joke? Because it’s not funny.”

He fixes her with a look that would make lesser men wither before him. “When’s the last time I told a joke, Allison?” 

Five watches as Allison’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “Never. But you can’t see Ben. He’s—” She grimaces. “You know.”

A sigh, low and long and full of irritation. “I know what I heard, thanks. And before you think I’m deluded, I’ll have you know I’m as sane as ever.” Five’s voice grows louder until he’s virtually yelling about his sanity in the hall.

Allison frowns in concern, a hand reaching out and stopping halfway to Five’s shoulder. _No touching._ That’s a rule they have to abide by here, and Allison is all for following the rules so long as they demand no one gets hurt.

Five, on the other hand, just broke at least two since he was shouting, gives no shits if he breaks more. Let them sedate him again, let his bruise get worse and worse. It can’t compare to the scars he already wears over his heart, the ones that tear open at the thought of Ben being alive and well and here. Capable of being hugged and told a quiet apology. _Sorry for not being at the funeral. Sorry for not being there to save you._

Hopes dashed by the time lunch rolls around, Five commiserates with Allison; Diego and Klaus are seated across the table, invested in their separate conversation about stupid things like whether or not Agnes and Hazel are an item, which, Five wants to tell them, they are.

Not that Five cares.

“Why don’t you take them?” Allison whispers, voice lacking in its usual scolding tone. She’s referring to his pills, which he’s avoided ingesting for six days now.

Instead of a proper answer, Five responds with a question of his own: “Why do you?” Allison may be a manipulative woman, be a mother who mind-controlled her child, but that’s who she was, not who she still is. She’s trying her best to change her life, to spin things in her favour without using her powers. Her taking what she’s prescribed follows that new step in her life, but Five can’t stand it. Before Allison can speak, he adds, “You could rumour everyone in this place and get out easily.”

The comment makes her pause, a split-second of temptation soon lost when she shakes her head. “I’m not doing that.”

Five huffs, picking at his salad with disinterest. “Feel free to find your own way out, then.”

Allison presses her lips together, taking her sweet time to think of a retort. “You’re a chicken.”

The fork stabs cleanly through the centre of Five’s lunch. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“No, I don’t think I did.” Five squints at his sister. “Say it again.”

She crosses her arms and leans against the cafeteria table. “You’re a chicken. That’s why you won’t take your medication. You’re afraid of what those pills do to you. You’re too used to having things to fight against, but face it—this place is here to help us. Just take them and let yourself try to get better.”

 _The Handler’s here,_ Five wants to tell her. _Hazel and Cha-Cha tried to attack our family at the Academy, and you had to fight them off. The apocalypse is coming._ But saying that only makes Allison believe her assumptions about his mental state, and Five frowns instead.

“If you don’t,” she adds, seeing the look on his face as she gets up with her tray, “I’ll report you.”

At the end of the day, when everything winds down and pills get doled out like candy on Halloween, Five stares at the small paper cup in his hand, counts the two pills inside, and doesn’t give them to Klaus; swallows them obediently, like everyone else.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Allison smile and lets his defeat lay down. Half an hour later, the world grows foggy. Distant. Artificial. Grace escorts Five to his room with a smile, and he lets her.

It’s too calm for Five’s restless mind to feel fully comfortable, and yet, it’s the most at peace he’s been in days. Plans to escape come into focus and fade faster than they arrive. Thoughts of murder, of violence and anger and revenge, dissipate before he can grasp them.

Alone in his room, Five tries to teleport, finding himself stuck in place, the familiar noise and iconic blue light surrounding his fists gone. It’s worse than when he’s out of juice, but panic doesn’t show up to ruin his mood.

When he settles down for the night, minutes before lights out, there’s a ghost of a smile on his face. He likes it here, or so he thinks. Five isn’t sure why he was so intent on leaving so soon. Compliance is key to recuperation and release. He and his family members can heal here.

In the morning, after last night’s dinner gets expelled via his mouth and flushed down the toilet, he thinks differently, and the prospect of revenge has never tasted so sickly sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are slow because I'm in school. Regardless, I hope y'all enjoyed! I went off and wrote nearly 2000 words.


	3. This Was a Mistake

It’s day nine, and Allison’s gotten discharged from the institution. Five knows she used her powers; there’s no way The Handler would resist otherwise. She’s allowed to leave after lunch. Seeing her go sparks ire in his chest because _fuck you, Allison. You’re a hypocrite._

She didn’t have to rumour him to get him to listen to her, but that doesn’t matter. Allison’s an expert at manipulation; she’s done it all her life. They take after their adoptive headmaster-called-father that way: put someone between a rock and a hard place, and they’ll cave to whatever demands exist to save their skin.

During his afternoon session with The Handler, Five proves too distracted to bother listening to the woman, excepting one sentence, where she offers him something she once offered before: a chance for him to have an adult body. “What do you say, you little shit—you want a hot older body to live in?”

Five sets his jaw, knowing fully well that should he accept, he’ll have effectively sold his soul. Or whatever remains of it—he doubts he has one after all the murders he’s committed.

“Where is my sister?” he asks, ignoring the way his voice quivers. He’s running out of time. Vanya’s somewhere in the city, probably in Harold’s clutches, and now Allison’s gone, too. Most likely to find Luther, if not to try to see Claire.

“Ooh, desperate, are we?” The Handler grins. Five wishes he could bash her teeth in, but he’s made a point to behave at these sessions. Mostly. “I’ll tell you where your precious little Vanya is if you do something for me.”

Whatever it is, it’ll be too much: a trick, a trap, a ploy that kills him once and for all. He murdered the Board of Directors to get home, and it was a failed endeavour. But Five’s sticking around on a whim; glaring at the television in the common room day after day, waiting for the news to say something, anything about rain or storms or abnormal soundwaves, an upcoming orchestra concert at the Icarus Theatre; it's tiresome. Akin to spending decades upon decades upon decades on the right equation to get to 2019.

Five can’t do that again, can’t live like that again. Not for much longer. “You’re bluffing. You know just as little as I do.”

“Do I?” She lights another cigarette, her second during their session, just barely having the good grace not to blow smoke in his face after the first inhale. “Do you really want to take that chance?”

Instead of indulging in his tormentor’s sick games, Five glances pointedly at a “No Smoking” sign on the back of the meeting room door.

“Ah, that.” The Handler rises out of her chair, heels clicking on the floor as she strides over to the door and turns, so her back’s blocking the sign. “No harm, no foul.”

Unfortunately, the door is the only way out of the room unless Five wants to reveal his still-active powers, and by his count, their session draws to a close in twenty minutes. “Que sera, sera, _sí?”_

Another grin. “Yes, Mr. Five, but last I checked, you called it ‘bullshit in any language.’ Unless you’re retracting that statement?”

He’s silent for a moment, getting up and slipping his hands into his pockets. “Well, I think it’s worth pointing out that it’s bullshit that doesn’t belong to one sole language because of how garbled it is. If you want an actual Spanish phrase that’s closer to what you mean, then it’s _lo que será, será.”_ _What will be, will be._

The grin slips away, utter contempt replacing it. “I didn’t ask for a Spanish lesson.”

“Shame. You need one.”

 _“¿Sí? Necesito aprender español?”_ The Handler steps aside, one hand on the doorknob, which she turns to open the door, and the other still grasping her cigarette holder. “Our time’s up. Get out.”

“No, it’s not.” But he walks into the hall anyway, just to avoid the tantrum she’ll no doubt have once he’s out of the room. And sure enough, the door slams behind him, earning Five a curious glance from Diego, who stands at the end of the hall and quickly makes his way over.

“What was that about?” There’s a strangled scream from inside the meeting room, and Five sighs quietly, not bothering to hide his smirk even as Diego frowns. “Is something going on in there?”

“Ignore it. Come with me.” They move to the cafeteria, where Diego fetches a glass of water and some sandwiches while Five opts for milk. ‘Coffee’ is out of the question; he refuses to have any additional cups aside from what he deems mandatory, which is one cup in the morning that he downs like a mugful of vodka. It doesn’t help that whenever he drinks like that, Grace looks apt to intervene lest Five choke.

But at this hour, Grace is nowhere to be seen in the dining room; it’s just Diego and Five and other patients, with Hazel standing by and idly conversing with Agnes.

“Maybe Klaus is right,” Diego mutters. Five pretends he doesn’t hear it; his friend’s relationship is none of his business, even though he’s aware Hazel’s to spend a pleasant twenty years with the love of his life before cancer claims Agnes's life. “So,” Diego starts, “Allison’s gone.”

“Yes, she is. Are you expecting me to do something about it?”

“No. Yes—maybe.” At Five’s glare, Diego sighs and keeps going. “I might know a way out.”

“What?” There’s no way Five heard right.

“Yeah. Get this: you, me, and Klaus head out tonight. I’ve got friends on the outside who say they’re willing to help us escape.”

“Can you name them?”

“For their safety, no. But that’s not important. You know all those letters I keep getting?”

Five nods. “The ones I assume you send to yourself?”

Diego huffs. “Do you want to hear the plan or not?”

“Fine. Keep talking.”

“Okay, so we all hang around the common room after ten. You can read, Klaus can knit, and I’ll be—”

“Bothering the both of us.”

“No. Shut up.” Five’s aware that if Diego had access to his knives, there’d be one in his hand right now, more so out of habit and comfort than a threat. “I’ll be talking to Mom.”

“Grace,” he corrects without hesitation. “That woman’s not our mother.”

Now the metaphorical knife would be pointed in Five’s face. “She’s practically our mom, man.”

“She’s a nurse, Diego. Grace is a living, breathing, human copy of our robotic version of Dad’s girlfriend from the sixties. She thinks you’re out of your mind—which you are—and constantly conflating her with our former nanny proves it. So snap out of it.”

“But—”

“Either tell me the rest of your plan, or I’m dumping the rest of this milk on your head.”

“Fine.” Diego clears his throat. “I distract Grace until five minutes before ten-thirty, which is when shit goes down. The lights go out; we bolt out of there, maybe fight off some guards—piece of cake."

The yearning to escape wins out over impatience; Five mostly resists the temptation to snark. “And our intended destination?”

Diego looks bewildered that Five has to ask. “The door.”

“After we leave, idiot.”

“I don’t know; a motel?”

“Fine.” A pause. “Have you told Klaus yet?”

“Nah. I was going to tell him at dinner.”

And sure enough, by the time dinner rolls around, Klaus and Diego are whispering to each other in between bites. Five ends up glaring at his meal, shoving forkful after forkful of cold pasta into his mouth solely for the sake of having enough energy to run.

When the clock in the patients’ lounge hits ten, Five, Klaus, and Diego remain among the few still seated, each preoccupied. Soon enough, it's just them and Grace in the room. When the minute hand ticks its way near ten twenty-five, the lights flicker once, then die. In the precious seconds between the blackout and the emergency lights coming on, Five gets up. He grabs Klaus by the arm and reaches for Diego’s wrist, then summons all his power and blinks.

They emerge in a hallway, stark white like all the other halls; after hastily reorienting the mental map he’s composed of the place, Five nods to his left. “This way.”

They set off at a jogger’s pace, though the trio’s quick to speed up to sprinting once alarms go off and the halls burn red in the light.

Klaus whines as they reach the second last hall before an exit, says, “Hey, Diego, what’d you say about this being easy?”

“Don’t talk, just run.” Diego charges forth and turns the corner before either of his brothers. Five’s quick on his heels. They have to get out. The fate of the world depends on it, depends on their all being there in time to ensure it isn’t too late—

_Bang._

_Bang._

_Bang._

Klaus goes down first. Five soon follows, unharmed. He’s quick to rise to his feet when he doesn’t see any bullet holes in the floor or walls. Klaus, on the other hand, stays on the floor, crawling away from their attackers as best he can. Or, as Five sees when he turns around, their attacker, singular. It’s only Cha-Cha standing there.

“Blanks, huh? Thought you were a killer.” The way Five sees it, at least one of their siblings has to make it out if he can’t. He doesn’t like that it’s Diego, but he’ll take what he can get.

“I am.” Cha-Cha drops the gun, takes a capped syringe out of her pocket. “Killing wasn’t part of the order.”

She runs. Five turns to chase after Diego—

“Shit!” He trips over Klaus, ends up sprawled on the floor. He can’t reveal his powers to Cha-Cha, doesn’t know if she knows already, regrets their collective mistake in not knocking Grace out. Five winces upon sedation. There's another pair of footsteps approaching, and then Klaus is whimpering beside him.

At first, it’s a low hum, but soon it changes. Morphs into a word—a name. “Ben—”

The needle’s barely out of Five’s neck before he turns his head to look at Klaus, seeing Ben crouched next to his brother, calmly dropping a now-used syringe into a biohazardous waste bag Cha-Cha holds.

Their eyes meet, Five’s and Ben’s. As Five's hauled to his feet and dragged back to his room, as he's left on his bed, as his eyes slowly close, his mind sticks on one word: _Why?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full-time uni student workload + part-time job + pandemic = very slow updates. But hey! I'm alive and well! Or, as well as one can be in these troubling times.


End file.
